Month: October 2023

My fantasy performance is flat out bad. Sure, I’ve managed to post good scores and a solid win percentage in my money league, but that is because I have solid players and have been lucky on the waiver wire. The fact remains that I start the wrong guys. I should not be starting 2-3 tight ends in any league. Yet in the $$ league that is how it has been for weeks. In the Beach league, I’m dead in the water. I look like my Giants, and instead of not being able to stop rushers I can’t stop point from slipping through my fingers. I left 70 on the bench… between two guys I should’ve started. It is like that every single week. I don’t start the talent I should, and I end up losing.

At present I am in last place with little hope of the playoffs. I waxed philosophical the other day about what it would take for a turnaround. I still hold to that philosophy, but I need to decide to make the commitment if I want to be more than a joke. I do want to be more than that. My competitive spirit is too high to swallow these defeats weekly.

Some Thoughts:

1. My boys are swallowing defeats weekly, but the next few weeks present a real opportunity to turn that around. I hope the younger gets healthy so he can give his all next Wednesday and secure the win. This week wasn’t that. The senior still has a chance to shine Friday. If he does it may lead his squad to a surprise win and perhaps a win streak.

I have this strange view of death as a loop point. Maybe it comes from wishful thinking or merely not believing in the concept of heaven as explained by those of the dominant faiths around me. My belief is that death ends our story. It stops our ability to create new memories. That is where it gets a bit tricky for me. Does that mean that we exist as the timeline in which we did exist–with everything happening as it was again and again as we experience each moment of that singular life in a holding pattern reflective of the nature of time itself? Or do we experience the merged possibilities of a myriad of lives we could have lived based on choices–sliding doors as one director/writer put it? Perhaps I am wrong about all of it and our conscious, however fleeting, simply evaporates and time moves forward until it no longer moves forward….

These are thoughts of the macabre, but they are also beautiful because I know we will all reach that endpoint someday, and I’d like to believe the end is a point, like in the vhs of old rewinding to the beginning and experiencing it all again. I live an incredible life. There are parts of it that were not wonderful, but even those helped to shape me into who I am.

My journey here is not over–hopefully not by a long shot, and I will keep making new memories and dwelling in the now. But when my mind does turn to wonder, I am comforted by the hope that I will see (and do) this all again.

It feels really odd to be sitting at week five of fantasy and think, “Dang. My season is over.” I mean even the Giants feel like they can make a run late. Yet here I am about to slide to 1-4 with my only win against the other team about to be 1-4 and not feeling like I can beat any of the remaining two win teams in order to have a shot. Sure, some of it is mental, but a lot of it is poor play. I fixated on what I didn’t have and failed to capitalize on what I do have week in and week out. I have a 30 point QB and rbs who can pop off for that at any time. Yet I’m worried because I cannot get or even find a valid TE option. Heck in my other league I have three (two of which I’ve been starting)… And that is a far deeper league (by four teams, mind you).

What I am trying to confess is that failure is a state of mind, and at some point in time my mind decided I failed in this league. It is a long road back towards feeling otherwise. It is going to take not only wins, but confident picks. It is going to take some study and some sturdy dedication to following through on turning it around. In short, it is going to take work.

I’m not sure I have it in me right now.

Hater’s gonna hate, right? In fact last night one of my boys was talking down about the Deion Sanders led Buffs. Not so oddly enough, it was one of the two that didn’t go to the game last night. All five were invited but only three went. The hate, which not fully formed was a simple comment about how the Buffs are not very good. It was a layered comment about them barely beating what is now a 1-5 ASU football team. Of course, #9 USC barely beat a then 1-3 ASU football team, and the comments about not being very good did not exist. There is a simple truth inherent here: People hate whoever is getting the good press so long as they don’t think that person deserves the good press. Deion is getting all the press, and that makes the haters hate more.

Here are the facts: The Buffs are 4-2 this year with the 2 losses coming against top 10 teams–including a blowout loss to Oregon, who boasts the #1 offense in college football. Colorado boasted 1 win last year–a 20-13 overtime victory against Cal. They were blown out of every other game last year save for an 8 point loss to ASU. You have to reach back to November 2021 to find another win. In fact, there were two wins in 21 and a lot of blowout losses. What this says to me is that the expectations of Sanders team from the outside world match his own (maybe unrealistic) expectations of turning them into a team that challenges for the national championship instantly.

But those are not his expectations. He said from the start that he is building a program from the ground up. He said he’s going to win games and change the culture and all of that has happened thus far. Instead of a team that is hopeful to win one game this season he has brought in a new mentality and is holding everyone accountable. He shed 55 players who were not being held accountable and said that you cannot merely blame the coaches if the kids are trying to bring a winning culture. Instead he brought in a ton of kids who were about the winning culture and recruited a bunch more. Sanders said himself that he needs 6 or 7 more pieces to compete for a national championship. Most teams talk about needing 1 or 2.

Haters gonna hate, but this thing is going somewhere. Fast.

People have a lot to say about Colorado football. There is a lot to say. There is a lot going on from the perspective of African Americans and from the perspective of culture shift. Prime Time, one of the most pivotal culture figures in the sport of Football, is now Coach Prime and he is pushing the limits of what is acceptable in college sports. He’s a man of the era and a pop pioneer. He is the guy who truly brings the visibility and the coverage and, above all else, he casts a completely different mode in what it means to be a coach.

The NFL is a copycat league. Suddenly the HC ranks are filled with 30 something smart guys who have added something on one side of the ball or the other, without actually being long time players –but instead analysts and thinkers. That old guard shift was met with quite a bit of excitement, because it was marketed that way and because one of the first of this new batch of minds won the Super Bowl almost immediately. Now contrast that to Deion Sanders taking over a Power Five conference program. There are 14 black coaches in the 133 D1 programs. That’s roughly 10%. Not one back coach has ever one a national championship. In fact, college football as a whole may be the last bastion of the old white ball coach and his traditional thinking. Consider Saban’s Alabama team, which is the epitome of old ball.

Now look at Prime.

Think for a minute: He isn’t the only coach to bring in 50+ new players this season, but he is the one getting the most attention and hatred. Why? because he is vocal about the game and how it is being manipulated. As such he is drawing player to him and his style (which reflects them wholeheartedly). It is a real threat to see someone the kids like say out loud, “I ain’t hard to find.” Because they are encouraged to jump in the portal and join the greatest show in CFB. Which indeed it is. Win or lose, Prime is now the one to watch. Heck, in a few hours I’m going to an ASU game… just to see Colorado.

Back into the flow of working on the novel. The schedule, as compressed as it is, still gives me time to get things done the way I want and need to. I of course have other work that needs doing within that time frame. I look forward to the day I get paid enough to write one thing at a time. Alas that day is not today, therefore I am left to being a scheduler and a planner.

It is going OK. Not great and not consistent, but I did get scheduled more days than not this week. Deliberate Practice is the motto of the moment, and it starts first thing in the morning when I wake up. I’m early to the computer and then, once I get done with a chunk of grading, I tend to focus in on the blog. That didn’t happen today. I went right to the novel post grading. It was a misstep that finds me here late in the afternoon collecting these thoughts, but practice is progress.

I enjoy the opportunity to rebuild myself day by day and to reach a point where I can be a productive writer again. I am learning a ton from doing a lot at once, and while it is a larger form of multi-tasking, the art of scheduling gives me the ability to treat it like each thing is individual.

Some Thoughts:

1. Major misstep in the $$ league for fantasy. Started the Washington defense. 40 points later… Yeah, it is going to be a tough out for me for the rest of the weekend. Heck, I was better off recruiting the Giants!
2. Went to a dance class for the first time ever. Had fun. Sweat a lot. I may be chronically out of shape at this point, but I am still young enough to be able to get in better shape. I will never have the body of 18 yr old me, and I am no longer going to try for that. I am going to try to reduce the midsection considerably and be able to move across a dance floor with far less sweat involved.

I’m staring at a copy of Wendell Berry’s The Need to be Whole, and thinking to myself “why have I never heard of this until now?” As I often say in this space, There are Holes. I suppose I say it quite a bit more now that Josh Brolin did it so eloquently on Outer Range. Moving on, I’m happy to be able to move back into the comfort of Jon Oliver offering snippets of wisdom and comedy on a weekly basis. The end of the writer’s strike meant the return of Last Week Tonight alongside a plethora of day and night time talk show TV. The real shows have yet to return, but be sure they will be arriving shortly after the SAG strike is resolved. What bugs me about strikes is that it seems inevitable the Strikers will have their needs met. The entire point of the employers holding out is to see if the strikers will break, but any good strike force knows that they have the leverage here. Sure, they are hurting now, but the public won’t stand for scabs in acting and in other areas (such as automakers) there just isn’t a workforce to replace them. This corporate conundrum is a huge part of why automation and AI usage is such a growing threat.

Some Thoughts:

1. About time to rip the fictional band aid off. I will be devoting ALL of November to Nanowrimo-style writings for the 10 minute rule. That means 30 days and 300 minutes of new fiction is coming your way shortly. I don’t even know what it will be! That part excites me most of all.
2. Going back to Josh Brolin for a minute… This man auditioned to be Batman. He would’ve been spectacular. I wonder who the newest caped crusader will be?

I’ve been watching football diligently for over forty years. Never have a seen such a sad offensive line performance as I did two days ago when the Giants allowed 11 sacks against the Seattle Seahawks. Daniel Jones is rethinking that 40 mil contract as we speak. Every other potential QB in the league is thinking, “They are not for me”. This is a proper thought, because the Giants in their current state of Linemanship suck on both sides of the ball. The defense could hardly apply pressure against backup linemen and the offense flat out sucked. At this point Evan Neal is just about the worst RT in the league. However, given his strength and speed, he could be effective as a Guard. The present guards are entirely ineffective. The Giants just brought Pugh back into the fold, which could be a huge help–especially when they get Andrew Thomas back. The thought (in my my mind) would be to shift Neal inside and line up Pugh as the other guard while letting Ezedu tryout at RT and building considerably more depth with the remaining healthy linemen. This is all I have by way of a plan. The Giants otherwise seem completely hopeless. Of course, a possible solution could be to move one or more of the TEs into the backfield to provide some block/release action for an under-pressure Jones. The offense needs to adapt to the present weaknesses, and if they don’t soon we could be looking at being not-so-proud members of the Caleb Williams sweepstakes.

Some Thoughts:

1. The Giants leave me speechless. I mean, 24-3? The offense gave up most of those points.
2. Hoping the fantasy season can turn around. I finally got off the schneid in the family league by beating the equally winless future Mrs. Talislegger. So, there’s that.

Going back to Diet Days, which was published back in 2013. That is ten years removed and 23 lbs lighter than I was when I said I was heading towards 198. Now I am heading towards a wedding later this month where I no longer fit into the suit I bought to wear to it. Clearly I am trending in the wrong direction. Man I long for 216. The idea of getting to 220 fills me with a sense of wonder, so to think that 198–40+lbs lighter could be a possibility or even could have been in astounding.

Trending in the wrong direction ought ought to be the tagline for my self-evaluation and value over the past year or few. I lost my way big time and the weight gain is a clear and present reflection of that. It isn’t a ‘I need Jesus’ moment persay, but I just need to lock in on my values and pacing and figure out how to live a life that is in balance and ultimately healthy. I was not doing that back in 13′ and I am clearly not doing it now.

Instead I am living in a constant binge purge cycle of pleasures and work. I don’t have balance for a number of reasons. I truly believe the top reason is living in a space where I am not respected. As a result of that I walk around trying not to get angry and trying not voice what is wrong and not putting it in the writing for concerns of it creating more tension. Heck, even this passage could cause problems in my life. All the same, living under the umbrella of disrespect is a difficult thing to endure. Even when things feel really good in the space you always know they could turn ugly in an instant. I personally know that if that happens it won’t end well for any of us. So when you’re so busy not rocking the boat in spite of how anyone else behaves, you’re spending your mental energy focused on the impact of that and not on yourself.

It is an excuse–valid or not. I still need to find a way to do what I can under the conditions I decide to live under.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this concept lately. I am always feeling overwhelmed or rushing to get from place to place and squeeze as much as I can into a day. In that I find myself thinking that the real problem is a lack of patience and stepping away from the concept of focusing on the breath. Buddhism is the practice of patience through the breath. Patience is not necessarily waiting for anything but simply allowing things to happen as they will. This is a huge area of stress for me. I don’t allow things to happen, in spite of the reality that allowing things to happen is how my life has come to the point where it currently is.

The key to happiness, I believe, is patience. I truly feel that allowing that to guide me will permit me to live a life that is blessed by circumstance.

what I must work to realize is how antithetical this is to the world and many of the people around me. I would dare to say most. I am however blessed with a partner of the same mentality. I struggled against the logic she professed, until realizing the silence and the patience she fought for in our lives was perhaps everything I had right in my life that I allowed myself to turn away from.